ABOUT THE WINERY
In 1970, Siro established the Pelagrilli estate with a few small hectares of Brunello vines in the Canalicchio district north and east of the village of Montalcino. Pelagrilli has since become the seat of the Siro Pacenti winery and vine plantings on this site have grown to encompass 15 hectares of Sangiovese Grosso.
Siro’s son, Giancarlo, assumed control of the winery in 1988 and oversaw the family’s first major investment in winery equipment and cellar hygiene after returning from his studies in Bordeaux. In 1990, Giancarlo expanded the holdings of the Siro Pacenti winery with the purchase of Piancornello vineyard in the southeast of Montalcino, which is home to vines planted in the 1960’s by his maternal grandfather. Here, the gravelly soils and southerly position compliment Pelagrilli’s sandy-clay soil and cooler growing environment. The historic plantings at Pelagrilli and Piancornello together make Siro Pacenti one the appellation’s largest owners of Sangiovese vines aged 40 years or greater, comprising roughly 1/5 of Montalcino’s total 40+ year-old plantings.
Today, Giancarlo carries on his family’s legacy with the maximum of precision and attention to detail. Farming practices are sustainable and massal selection from the estate’s oldest parcels supply vine material for new plantings. Meticulous selection in the vineyard brings top quality fruit to the cellar where it is passed through an optical sorter and individual berries are again sorted by hand both pre and post destemming. This helps to explain why the winery produces an average volume of 66,000 bottles per year even though Brunello DOCG regulations would allow upwards of 100,000 bottles from the same number of vines.
In the cellar, fermentations favor minimal intervention apart from temperature stability to allow for slow and gentle extraction. A combination of stainless steel and concrete vats are used for vinification, after which the young wines are transferred to barrel. Giancarlo’s use of barriques for maturation runs counter to the common wisdom that small barrels overshadow the elegance of Sangiovese. Every wine in Giancarlo’s cellar includes components that have passed through new French barriques, yet his wines are known to be among the most elegant and pure expressions of Sangiovese available.
The Siro Pacenti label on a bottle of wine represents an uncompromising approach to winemaking and preservation of rare vines planted at the dawn of Brunello’s golden age.
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